


Stay With Me

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Bae Ending, Prompt Fill, Save the Bae, pricefield, sharing a bed but make it sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: They're an hour away from what's left of Arcadia Bay, and Max still hasn't stopped shaking.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656067
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AreWeAsBandits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreWeAsBandits/gifts).



> AreWeAsBandits prompted me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella) with "You're trembling" and "I thought you were dead." More post-bae angstiness, hurray! As with most (all) of my prompt fills, this is unbeta'd and minimally revised, so please take it with a grain of salt.

They’re an hour away from what’s left of Arcadia Bay, and Max still hasn’t stopped shaking. At first, Chloe assumes it’s just from the cold: the storm soaked them both to the skin, and it had taken a long time for Chloe to stop shivering, too. But the heat in her truck is doing its best, and Max has Chloe’s wool fire blanket draped over her, and Max is still shaking. It’s adrenaline, probably, or fear. Chloe steals another glance at Max and sees that she’s fallen asleep slumped against the passenger door. Hell, maybe it’s relief.

Even asleep, Max is shaking so hard the blanket starts to slide off of her. Chloe reaches out with one hand as she drives and tugs the blanket up. 

Seattle is the logical place to go, obviously. But Chloe’s phone was totaled by the storm, and she has no idea how to get to Washington state, much less the Caulfields’ house. She’s barely even driven outside of Arcadia Bay before. And even if Max were awake she’s been so out of it since the storm that she can’t exactly be relied upon for clear directions. So Chloe drives in a direction that seems vaguely Seattle-ward and lets Max rest.

Or, at least, she tries to. The suspension on her truck isn’t in the best shape, and Max gets startled awake by every bump in the road. It’s heartbreaking seeing Max jolt awake every couple of minutes and blink her eyes in confusion as though she expects to be waking up literally anywhere but in Chloe’s truck.

Eventually, it all gets to be too much. Chloe’s pretty sure if she drives like this through the night she’ll have them wrapped around a tree before morning. Max doesn’t question it when Chloe pulls into the lot for some seedy roadside motel. She follows Chloe around like a zombie. Chloe pays for their room with a few bills from the cash stash she liberated from Wells’ office on Tuesday night.

The guy at the desk leans over it to glance at the empty ground at their feet. “No baggage?”

Chloe wants to laugh. Instead she just answers with a noncommittal shrug. The guy hands her a key card. He reaches another out to Max, who stares through it like it isn’t even there. Chloe takes it from him, too. “Thanks.”

“Your friend okay?”

Chloe very much doubts that either of them will be anything remotely approaching “okay” anytime in the near future. But she doesn’t want to get into it with some rando; she just wants to collapse into bed and forget that the world is a thing that exists, so all she says is, “It’s been a long day.” Chloe takes Max gently by the arm and leads her and their invisible mountains of baggage to their room.

There are two beds. Chloe leads Max to the one closest to the door and sits her down on it. She’s relieved when Max automatically starts peeling off her wet clothing by herself, sparing her the internal debate over whether or not she should do it for her. She gives Max as much privacy as possible considering how small the room is: slipping the wet cigarettes carefully from her pack and laying them out on the scuffed up nightstand to dry, placing her ruined phone beside them and wondering if the guy at the desk could get her a bag of rice and whether that trick actually works, fluffing up the pillows on her bed and giving the mattress a few good pats to test if it’s as squeaky as it looks. (It is.)

When she hears Max settle into bed, she strips the quilt from her own and lays it over Max. “What’re you doing?” Max asks groggily as Chloe tucks her in.

“You’re _trembling_. Your parents would flay me if I let you freeze to death after you saved my life.”

Max’s hand darts out from under the covers and touches Chloe’s. “You’re cold, too,” Max mumbles.

Chloe doesn’t argue with her, just slips her hand away and firmly tucks the blankets into a snug cocoon around Max. “Comfy?”

Max nods her head and makes a tired sound of acquiescence.

“Good.” 

Chloe spends the next twenty minutes or so trying not to have a panic attack. She counts her breaths and distracts herself by examining every crummy detail of their motel room. She makes up stories about every scuff and stain. When she’s calmed herself enough, she goes into the tiny bathroom and scrubs herself off in the shower until the water cools. She wraps herself up in a threadbare towel and absolutely punishes the weak blow dryer trying to get her clothes dry. Afterward, she brings Max’s into the bathroom and tries to dry them, too. She changes into her now only slightly damp tank top and underpants and leaves Max’s clothes spread out beside Max’s bed. She hopes that by morning they’ll be totally dry, but with the way the room holds onto the humidity from her shower she doesn’t have much faith in that happening.

It’s cold in her bed with only a sheet and no comforter, but when she looks over at Max and sees that she’s not shaking anymore she feels like at least she made one good decision today. She can handle being cold a lot easier than she can handle seeing Max suffer. 

She’s exhausted, but every time she closes her eyes she sees the storm imprinted against her eyelids like an afterimage. Every time she tries to relax, she thinks about the fact that everyone’s dead and it’s all her fault. Every time she breathes, she wonders how much it hurt to be shot in the chest, how quickly she’d bled out, and whether the world would’ve been a better place if Max had just let it happen.

It’s almost a relief when Max starts screaming. The sound chases every thought out of Chloe’s mind except for the urgent need to help Max. 

“Max!” Chloe kneels by Max’s bedside, clasping one of her flailing, sweaty hands between both of her own. “Max, wake up!” Max keeps tossing and turning, emptying her lungs so loudly that it echoes off the thin walls. Jesus, she’s going to wake up the whole motel. “C’mon, Max, please wake up. It’s only a dream. You’re okay.” She frees one of her hands and wipes the wet bangs back from Max’s face. “You’re okay.”

Max wakes with a gasp so sharp she nearly chokes on it. Her eyes are wide and full of tears. She stares at Chloe like she doesn’t trust she’s really there. Then Max sobs and flings her arms around Chloe’s shoulders, nearly falling out of bed. “I thought you were dead,” she gasps tearfully into Chloe’s ear. Her fingers dig into Chloe’s back, clutching her close. “ _I thought you were dead_...”

Chloe balances like that - crouched on the disgustingly stained motel carpet with most of Max’s body weight slung precariously between her and the bed - for a good ten minutes, just stroking Max’s hair and whispering reassuring words while Max sobs into her shoulder. “C’mon,” she says when Max finally seems to have cried herself out enough to be tired again. She can feel Max getting heavier as her muscles slowly go limp. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Max goes docilely enough until Chloe turns to go back to her own bed. Then Max seizes her wrist and turns the full force of her sad, blue puppy dog eyes on her. “I-I don’t want to have another dream like… like _that_ and not have you here; I don’t-- Would you stay with me? Please?”

The thought of sharing a bed with Max feels wrong. It’s something she doesn’t deserve; not after all of this. She deserves a cold, empty bed and a sleepless night. She doesn’t deserve comfort and companionship.

But Max does. So Chloe nods her head and returns Max’s relieved smile, and when she climbs into the bed she lets Max curl up in her arms and does her best to think of nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to AreWeAsBandits for the prompt and to all of you for reading!


End file.
